Monday, March 23, 2009

I must apologise for my long absence. I've been busy working on edits for my YA (to be utterly clear, this YA has not been sold yet to a publisher or anything, when I say edits, I mean that I am currently working with my agent to make the book as super awesome as possible before sending it out to editors). It was a rather time consuming activity, and managed to make my back feel rather uncomfortable. But they're done, yay! And now I have some time to do . . . other stuff. Including blogging. I have some blog posts planned for this week (I've been brainstorming even if I haven't been blogging), so I'm looking forward to sharing them with you.

However today, I'm catching up on fun things, like paying bills and food shopping, so instead of composing something particularly dense, I thought I'd share with you all some awesome news that happened this weekend..

And getting a review that ALSO reviews your good friend's book? Well the odds are astronomical.

Yes by sheer amazing coincidence, I got the distinct honour to be reviewed in the SAME article as my amazing friend, the lovely Lesley Livingston (whom I've written about many a time here on this blog, and who's first book, Wondrous Strange, is doing wonderfully well). We also share the article with Charles De Lint, but really, I'm more excited about us.

So that alone is super cool. Super cooler is that both our books garnered reviews that could be called nothing short of glowing. However the coolest bit, in my opinion, can only be found in the print version. At the top of the article you'll find our pictures with the following caption: "Livingston and Kress: dark power and mouthy cleverness".

Technically Lesley would be dark power, I would be mouthy cleverness, but to look at our pictures you would think the opposite.

Still, pretty awesome superpowers to have. Well . . . maybe not mouthy cleverness. I can't see how that would really save the day . . . in fact I could see it causing more grief than good. Could be really annoying.

Anyway . . . it was a great way to start off a Saturday, and so special that I got to share it with Lesley. Gots to love happy coincidences!

Monday, March 02, 2009

Agent Colleen Lindsay twittered (or is it tweeted?) about this website today: Forgotten Bookmarks. It's just amazing the stuff people left behind in books as placeholders. Who would have thought there was a website in this? But there totally is. There's also a book in this, be it non-fiction or the catalyst for a novel. Writer's Craft teachers take note, send your students here, seriously.

One thought, I'm glad though that I never really got into bookmarks and preferred destroying my books by folding the top corner down. Some of the stuff that they've retrieved seems awfully personal. I don't mind being a voyeur, but I'm glad it isn't the other way around.